A Tale of Three Knicks Fans

 

OG Anunoby with the tip-in that changed everything.

At the age at which one develops a lifelong relationship with a sports team, generally around age 8 or 10, Curmie lived about an hour and a half north of New York City (the local community theatre was called “90 Miles Off Broadway”), so for six decades or so his teams have been the Mets, Jets, Knicks, and Rangers.  The big wins, alas, have been rather rare.  In the last 53 years, those teams have combined for one World Series championship, one Stanley Cup, no Super Bowl appearances (let alone titles), and now, finally,  one NBA title.  Three titles in 212 chances… <sigh>.  But hey, that’s better than 2 for 211.

Who is the most famous Knicks fan?  Well, Spike Lee is probably the most famous for being a Knicks fan.  The most famous people who are also Knicks fans are Donald Trump, who grew up in Queens, and Taylor Swift, who became a Knicks fan in the early 2010s through a friendship with Amar’e Stoudemire, the Knicks’ star power forward (and one of Curmie’s favorite players) at the time.  Curmie has no reason to believe that either of them are anything but true Knicks fans.  (Things may get a little complicated for Swift, as Travis Kelce is a Cavs fan... but Curmie has been married to a Cavs fan for 44 years, so it can be done!)  The sportscaster/talking head who most wears his Knicks fandom on his sleeve is ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.  It’s Smith, Trump, and Curmie himself who are the title characters of this piece, although it’s only fair to mention Lee and especially Swift for their celebrations after that crazy Game 4.

Curmie has seen hundreds of Knicks games on TV, but he’s never been inside Madison Square Garden.  That doesn’t make him less of a fan, any more than the thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers who, to quote Mayor Zohran Mamdani, “have watched… on televisions in the windows of electronics stores, and from projectors balanced on fire escapes,… alone in [their] apartments,… [or] shoulder to shoulder in bars where the signal flickers.” 

This is not to say that the Mariska Hartigays, Timothée Chalamets, and Ben Stillers of the world aren’t true fans.  But the folks who don’t have the resources to plonk down a few thousand dollars to watch a single game live instead of on TV, the ones who had to work that night because they’ve got a family to feed, the ones who were jumping up and down and screaming in the streets blocks or even miles from MSG, or in Kennedy airport, or in watering holes throughout the metropolitan area: these people aren’t necessarily more loyal, but it’s a good bet this victory meant more to them because they needed it more.

It’s definitely fair to say that it’s a lot more fun to watch your team win than to see them lose.  Repeatedly.  Comprehensively.  Curmie confesses that he didn’t watch the end of Game 4.  He would have if either team could have clinched, or if had been a close game at the time, but the worst that could happen from his perspective was a 2-2 series tie.  That looked pretty likely with the Spurs up 27 when Curmie called it a night, having watched his team find a way to lose both games and series momentum far too many times.  Curmie had seen this movie before, or at least thought he had.

Yes, he remembers Willis Reed’s entrance into MSG in Game 7 of the 1970 championship game, and Walt Frazier’s 36 points and 19 assists in that game.  He remembers Allen Houston’s runner from the lane to beat Miami in 1999.  But he also remembers Charles Smith not getting a foul call (he was fouled, dammit!) in 1993, and Reggie Miller scoring 8 points against us in less than 9 seconds in 1995.  And those were the not-awful Knicks teams.  There were plenty of really bad ones; they’ve lost about 100 more games than they’ve won since ’73.

After that miraculous comeback in Game 4, though, Curmie wasn’t going to miss any of Game 5.  With the Knicks down 16 in the first half, seemingly unable to throw the ball in the ocean from the shore, he turned to Beloved Spouse and said something like “If this team hadn’t come back from more than this several times just in the playoffs, I’d turn the game off.  But we’re going to see what happens.”  The Knicks, in fact, had trailed by double digits in every game in the finals, and indeed finished the series having spent more time down by ten or more than leading by any margin.  What happened, of course, was that the Knicks got yet another comeback victory, thereby clinching the championship, four games to one.

So Curmie was really happy.  He’d remained a loyal supporter, but perhaps wasn’t as enthusiastic as he might have been in the past.  Guys named Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby and a few of their friends cured that.  He’ll watch more closely next year.

But let’s move on to the other two title characters, Stephen A. Smith and Donald Trump, linked together by their comments about each other.  When word got out that Trump intended to attend Game 3, Smith went off, saying “If it causes the New York Knicks to lose tonight, I’m blaming him.  I’m blaming the President of the United States.  I’mma stay on that.  And damn it, I hope the G.O.P. lose votes because of it if we lose tonight.”  There’s more, but you get the idea, Gentle Reader.  And… um… wow.

OK, so Curmie once described SAS as an “insufferable blowhard,” and he’s not seen anything of late to alter that impression.  But did ol’ Stephen A have a point?  Well, maybe.  Sort of.  It is certainly true that Trump’s appearance disrupted the dynamic.  Fans had to go through TSA-like security and arrive much earlier than necessary (possibly having to take time off of work to do so).  It’s a reasonable surmise that they were generally in foul rather than celebratory humor when they finally entered MSG. 

Local bars, restaurants, etc., that were counting on increased customer traffic got none.  Even people who couldn’t care less about the game were inconvenienced by cordoning off a “several block radius” around the Garden.  That would certainly include Penn Station, and depending on the precise meaning of “several,” perhaps a chunk of the theatre district.  Plus, of course, it is simply a statement of fact that Dear Leader does whatever he can to make literally everything about himself, even if he ends up being heartily booed in the process.  Was Trump’s attendance “selfish [and] narcissistic,” as Smith said in the lead-up to the game.  Well, sure, but when has DJT ever been otherwise?  It’s important to note that Smith goes out of his way to say he’s being apolitical and concerned more about traffic congestion and similar issues.  Could be…

Did Trump’s presence change the feel of Game 3 and ultimately carry over into Game 4?  Marginally, yes.  Did he cause the Knicks to lose?  Let’s just say that Curmie hopes that SAS was being facetious, and it does appear that way in his post-game comments.  

DJT actually wasn’t lying about being a Knicks fan.  Did he go to Game 3 because he could?  Sure, but so did a host of celebs whose presence seems not to have bothered much of anyone.  And he was apparently invited by Knicks owner James Dolan.  Did he then proceed to fall asleep at the game?  The video evidence isn’t conclusive, but it does suggest as much.  Dolan says otherwise, but Curmie notes that the video suggests that Dolan seems to be nodding off, too, so his claims of talking to Trump throughout the game are at best open for debate.  And anyone who says that Dear Leader is “a great guy” is not someone Curmie is going to believe uncritically.

Of course, Trump was asked about Smith’s comments and responded by saying, “I think he’s a nice guy, but you need a certain aptitude to run for President [Smith is apparently contemplating a run].  You need a high IQ; I’m not sure that Stephen has that.  I don’t think he does, actually.”  There is, to be sure, no little irony in the fact that it’s Donald Trump making that allegation.

The headlines proclaimed that Smith subsequently “doubled down” on blaming Trump for the Game 3 loss, but whereas he seemed in earnest before the game, the context of his remarks after the loss suggests that it was all in fun.  Curmie knows something of that phenomenon.  In the 20 years he taught at his most recent university, he directed a Mainstage production at some point in the academic year 17 times; there were no named storms in the area any of those years.  He dramaturged once; there was a tropical storm.  He sat out completely twice: Hurricanes Rita and Ike.  Curmie didn’t claim to control the weather, but he made it clear he wasn’t denying it, either.  Anyone who really thinks all this was anything but coincidence is too stupid to be reading this blog, but it was a bit of fun for Curmie and his friends, colleagues, and students.

So, Trump is still a narcissist and Smith is still a blowhard, but perhaps not quite as bad as usual.  Knicks fandom is a Big Tent.  But if we have to keep these two, we damned well better be able to claim Tay-Tay and Mariska.

From the "Sports Build Character" (Basketball Edition) Files

There are three (count ‘em, three!) basketball-related stories on Curmie’s radar at the moment, none of them, of course, really about basketball. They’re really more about ethics and the problems with viewing sports in general as a positive force in society. 

Obviously, there are advantages to sports: the athletes are of necessity in better physical shape (apart from sports-related injuries, of course) than they’d otherwise be. Team sports—even those which feature individual performances, like high school or college competitions in tennis or swimming—build an understanding of goals greater than personal aggrandizement: most of those players who say they’d rather be on a championship team than to be the MVP are actually telling the truth. And the lessons extend past teamwork to include worth ethic, discipline, etc. 

But there’s also a downside which comes into play in various ways—sometimes when the identification with the team becomes so great that it warps ethical values, sometimes when the allure of personal notoriety dwarfs them. 

We start with what appears to be a manifestation of the former. In far northwestern Vermont, a brawl broke out at a middle-school basketball game between 13- and 14-year-old boys from St. Albans and Alburgh. There is a little cell phone footage of the incident, showing that the scuffle, largely if not exclusively among adults, by the way, spilled onto the court while players from both teams stayed out of the altercation. 

Such episodes are infrequent but not unheard of: there was a good-sized altercation after a wrestling match at Curmie’s high school, for example, and a few years later someone got stabbed for cheering for the wrong team at a high school basketball game in the small town where Curmie lived at the time. There are, no doubt, dozens if not hundreds of such occurrences every year. 

What makes this story different is that someone died, apparently (although the investigation is not yet concluded) from injuries sustained in that brouhaha. There’s one headline that identifies the victim, Russell Giroux, as a “dad,” but neither the accompanying article nor any other Curmie can find supports that claim, so proceed with that assumption at your own risk, Gentle Reader… especially since that same headline says he died “at” the game; he died in the hospital after summoning emergency workers at some point on his way home. 

At this point, it’s a reasonable guess that injuries sustained in the punch-up contributed to Giroux’s demise, but that’s still speculative. What isn’t apparently, is that he was indeed a participant in the melee. What started it all is still not clear: it’s certainly possible that the brawl had nothing to do with the game at all, but it’s certainly a possibility that something in the contest, or something that someone in the stands said about its participants, triggered the incident. So the only thing we’re sure of is that crowds intensify The Stupid. 

Story #2: Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson is claiming that the first half of their game at Florida State last Sunday was played with the wrong size ball. Lawson believes the half was played with the ball used in the men’s game; the ball used in the women’s game is two ounces lighter and an inch smaller in circumference. Both teams shot well off their season averages in the first half and much better in the second half: a statistic which, of course, could be either telling or simple coincidental. 

The error, assuming there was one, is significant in part because, if Lawson is correct, Florida State’s win in that game is tainted: the home team provides the balls, so the fact that the ball wasn’t kosher is on them. Plus, the two teams are battling for position in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and the Seminoles’ win could affect seed lines for the conference and/or NCAA tournaments. 

Lawson claims her players were complaining about the ball throughout the first half, and that the officials finally noticed the error and changed to the right ball at halftime. She attempted to appeal, but the ACC denied her request, pointing to a rule that players (players? not officials?) must confirm the correct ball size before tipoff, and claiming that “following the thorough and objective review process, there was no evidence found to support the claim.” 

One thing is certain: somebody is lying. Whether it’s Lawson, the officials, or the ACC is unclear, but Curmie’s money is on the conference, mostly because of this part of their statement: “The conference continues to prioritize and support our nearly 10,000 student-athletes in a world-class manner and conduct its 27 sponsored sports with the utmost integrity.” When you start saying irrelevant stuff, especially if it’s self-congratulatory, the chances are really good you’re ducking responsibility for something. Or, as generations of Curmie’s students have heard him say innumerable times, “if you have to tell me, it ain’t so.” 

By the way, a similar phenomenon happened a while back, when the College of Charleston was docked two wins in terms of seeding for the Colonial Athletic Conference tournament for using “improperly sized” balls in two conference games in January of 2017. 

But the winner of the WTF Sweepstakes has to be one Arlisha Boykins. She was an assistant coach for the Churchland High School girls’ JV basketball team in Portsmouth, Virginia. One of the team’s players was out of town playing in a club tournament, and the 22-year-old Boykin impersonated her, playing under her name, using her uniform, and taking the floor in a game against Nansemond River. Boykins was playing with and against girls no older than 15. 

Apparently everybody associated with the team except the girl whose identity was stolen is culpable. Boykins was fired; so was the JV head coach, who had to be in on the deception, and the varsity coach, who was reportedly “encouraging the behavior” during the game. Of course, the other girls on the team had to have known what was going on. They can be forgiven, perhaps, for fearing to come forward about what was happening, but there are a lot of adults who had to have feigned ignorance. It took the parents of the girl who wasn’t at the game to point out the emperor’s déshabillément. 

That girl, by the way, has transferred to another school, where, presumably, she’ll be able to play ball for the rest of the season. Churchland’s season is over; whether this was indeed a decision by the players, as has been reported, or a decision imposed by the administration, which has decided to do its job for a change (who hired those coaches, after all?) is not clear, but failure to do the right thing can have consequences. 

We close with a quote from one of the few actual adults in this piece, the father of the girl who place was taken by Boykins: “Coaches always preach to the kids about integrity and those types of things, so I was just shocked.” Curmie was young and naïve once, too…